At Couples’ Reunion, Laughs, Then Grief

Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married Too?

Tyler Perry likes to give full value for the entertainment dollar, and “Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too?” is two movies for the price of one.

The first half is a comedy about four married couples gathering for their annual Caribbean vacation. The second half is a seriously overwrought melodrama in which the fault lines that generated laughs in the first half open up, doing damage — in one case irreversible — to all of the marriages, before a tacked-on happy ending featuring an amusing uncredited cameo.

Which is to say it’s a Tyler Perry movie, with a little something for everyone, as long as you’re not expecting too much. It’s a sequel to Mr. Perry’s 2007 film “Why Did I Get Married?” (hence the awkward pun in the title), which was based on his play. All eight principal actors return to their roles, including Lamman Rucker as Troy, the new husband of Sheila (Jill Scott), who has divorced Mike (Richard T. Jones).

If I had to choose between the two halves of “Too,” I’d go with the melodrama, despite over-the-top touches like a scene in which the self-help author Pat (Janet Jackson), driven to her wits’ end by the relentless mechanics of the plot, forces the other three couples to stand up and hug one another in a hospital waiting room.

At least the movie’s second half gives the cast, particularly Ms. Jackson, Ms. Scott, Sharon Leal and Malik Yoba, something to do besides look pretty. Ms. Jackson’s destruction of a roomful of glass furniture with a golf club is invigorating and oddly funny, and Mr. Perry manages a nice bit of indirection regarding whether one spouse is faithful.

But getting there requires sitting through the comedy, a term that in this case is purely categorical. Hardly any of the laugh lines about age, marriage and the granting or withholding of sex connect; a beach scene with the four husbands that’s supposed to be full of crackling repartee is so meandering and unfunny (it feels unwillingly improvised rather than written) that you can’t wait for it to end.

Photo

Sharon Leal and Tyler Perry in “Why Did I Get Married Too?”Credit
Quantrell Colbert/Lionsgate

A large part of the problem is in the conception: the characters are walking clichés of buppie success and stability achieved at the cost of the soul. (An early close-up of a Range Rover bumper with a Fulton County, Ga., license plate tells us everything we need to know about one couple, and unfortunately, it’s meant to.) The ratio of soft to loud among the characters is 8 to 1, leaving Tasha Smith, as the stereotypically sassy Angela, to carry the entire comic load.

Mr. Perry himself plays Terry, the most reserved and mature of the group. At the risk of being condescending, it has to be said that if he had put on his dress and wig and shown up as Madea the movie might have been funnier.

Also worth mentioning is the queasy dynamic in which the male characters’ violent impulses are condemned in theory but, when acted on, seem to be implicitly excused, or at least overlooked. Over all, it’s the men who always wind up the victims — misunderstood, shut out, sick, dead. They’re the ones who bear the cross of marriage. (We won’t get into the running motif in which Mr. Jones’s character, now the outcast of the group, is disparaged for being “sensitive” and drinking “fruit juice.”)

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Halfway through the movie, Lou Gossett Jr. and Cicely Tyson come walking down the beach to dispense some wisdom about marriage, like the sages of a Shakespeare comedy. The chance to gaze at Ms. Tyson’s amazing face, in its halo of bright white hair, is the best thing about “Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too?” While you’re at it, you can ponder the fact that four decades ago she got to play substantial, star-making roles in “Sounder,”“The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” and “Roots.” The younger members of the cast should be so lucky.

“Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too?” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). A lot of talk about sex and drugs, and some unsettling moments of domestic violence.

Tyler Perry’s Why DidI Get Married Too?

Opened on Friday nationwide.Written and directed by Tyler Perry; directorof photography, Toyomichi Kurita;edited by Maysie Hoy; music by AaronZigman; production designer, Ina Mayhew;costumes by Keith G. Lewis; producedby Mr. Perry and Reuben Cannon;released by Lionsgate. Running time: 2hours one minute.

A film review on Saturday about “Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too?” referred imprecisely to the actor Lamman Rucker’s presence in the movie. While he joins the group of actors who play married couples, he is not joining them on screen for the first time. (He was also in the film’s predecessor, “Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married?”)

A version of this review appears in print on April 3, 2010, on Page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: At Couples’ Reunion, Laughs, Then Grief. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe